Dick Whittington was born in the West of England. While he was still only a little boy his father and mother died, and left him so poor that he had no home, and was thankful to do even the hardest work {40} for just his bare food. One day someone told him that the streets of London were paved with gold. "Can it be true?" he thought to himself. "Is there so much gold in London that it is trodden underfoot? Then it is my own fault if I starve here in the West Country, for am I not big enough and brave enough to tramp all the way up to London? Who could prevent me from picking up some of that gold which surely no one needs, or they would not pave the streets with it? And I need it so much! Courage, Dick Whittington; off with you to London!" So off he set, and tramped all the weary way to the great city. ====================================================================== [Illustration: NO. 11. AN ARCH OF LONDON BRIDGE; TOWER BRIDGE IN THE DISTANCE.] ====================================================================== When he reached it, up and down its streets he went,--streets far narrower than those of to-day, and darkened by the overshadowing houses, for often each of their stories stood out a little beyond the story below. Very dirty we should have thought those streets, for people often threw out into them their rubbish and refuse. And what of the gold? Dick saw none. At last, utterly wearied out, utterly disappointed, so weak from hunger that he could hardly stand, he sank down to rest on the doorstep of one of the houses. Now the story says that presently the cook of this house caught sight of him sitting there. She was a bad-tempered woman. She flung open the door and scolded Dick well for an idle fellow, and bade him be off. Dick begged her to give him work so that he might earn some food, but she would not listen to him, and only scolded the more; and while this was going on up came the master of the house, a rich merchant, whose name was Hugh Fitzwarren. He asked the meaning of all these angry words, and {41} he too was vexed to see a boy sitting idly on his doorstep, and bade him go to his work. "Ah," said Dick, "I have no work, and I have had nothing to eat for three days. I am a poor country lad, and here no one knows me, no one will help me." And he rose up to wander away again, but he was so tired, so weak, he could hardly stand. The merchant saw this, and said to the cook, "Take him in; feed him well, and set him to work to help thee in thy kitchen."